ILO chief says Asian crisis may cause job losses, unrest
ILO chief says Asian crisis may cause job losses, unrest
BANGKOK (AP): Asia's economic crisis will lead to a tidal wave
of job losses without safeguards for workers, especially women,
children and illegal migrants, officials of the International
Labor Organization said yesterday.
The collapse of once-booming Asian currencies and stock
markets has sent jitters through the world economy in recent
months, but the head of the ILO said at the opening of a regional
meeting that worse would come when unemployment rises.
"The problem is not just how many jobs are going to be lost,
but how many are not going to be created," Michel Hansenne, the
ILO director general, said.
"Globalization, which has brought so much to this part of the
world, will not be politically viable if it leads to
deterioration of social justice," Hansenne said.
Hansenne urged governments preoccupied with their foreign
reserves or meeting international bail-out conditions to also
turn their attention to ways to deal with mass unemployment.
The ILO deals with global labor issues at the behest of the
United Nations, organizing a dialog between governments, labor
groups and employers. The three-day conference in Bangkok brings
together participants from 36 countries.
In Thailand, where a currency devaluation in July triggered
the regional economic meltdown, an estimated one million people
could be thrown out of work, ILO officials said. They were more
reticent about citing figures for other countries.
Meanwhile, countries like Vietnam struggling to shift from
communism to a market-oriented economy are unlikely to see the
high growth rates that would create large numbers of new jobs.
The boom that transformed parts of Asia over the past decade
from agrarian to newly industrialized societies greatly cut
poverty but also weakened the informal safety net in which family
members who lost city jobs could return to their villages and
expect support.
In most countries, no government social protection --
unemployment benefits, retraining or redeploying workers -- have
been created to replace the old safety net.
A sharp increase in unemployment could be "catastrophic,"
Hansenne said.
"Even a deceleration of growth would generate social
tensions."
The workers likely to suffer most would be women, children and
migrants, who were the most vulnerable people in any major
economic crisis, Hansenne said.
Roger Boehning, head of the ILO technical team for Southeast
Asia, said that the current crisis could lead to the dismissal of
"large numbers" of migrant workers in South Korea, Malaysia and
Thailand.
The ranks of child laborers were likely to rise, Boehning
said.
If women who work at unskilled jobs in, say, the garment
industry, lose their jobs, they probably will send their children
out to work to supplement income.
Even before the downturn, about 60 percent of the world's
working children lived in Asia and one Asian child in five was
estimated to be working. Forced labor to carry supplies for the
army and build roads is common in Myanmar, the subject of an ILO
commission of inquiry in Geneva.
The Bangkok delegates will discuss a proposed declaration
demanding that member states respect the rights of workers to
form unions, forbid forced labor and child labor and ensure that
women receive the same pay as men for the same job.
Violators could not be expelled from the ILO, but would
probably receive some form of public condemnation not now
possible.
The ILO's board is to consider a draft declaration next March.
It will be sent on for approval by the general assembly later in
the year. Hansenne said that "no Asian view" would be decided at
the current regional meeting.